vice president biden let a roundtable discussion on the administration's efforts to curb gun violence joined by janet napolitano, kathleen sebelius and jim cole. the vice president had these emotional words. >> what happened up in newtown, beautiful little babies, 6 and 7 years old, riddled, riddled with bullet holes. 20 of them dead. i've met with most of their parents. it is a national tragedy, and a window in to the vulnerability people feel about their safety and the safety of their

children. and the president said, even if our actions would only save the life of one of those children, it's worth it. >> while the vice president remains optimistic about administration's plans, it is not just the gop has expressed doubt. some senate and congressional side stepping and questioning the president's push for new gun laws. our next guest saying not only can democrats push for gun control in the south and win, some have already done so! joining us now is our favorite nerd in the world, nate cohn, staff writer for "the new republic." how are you? >> good to be back. >> you say in the new article, pro-gun control dems can win in red states and succeeding in dixie with a "f" from the nra. what? how? who? how are they doing this? >> best example is bill nelson who ran for the first time in

2000 when gun control supposedly cost al gore the presidency and won the state by five points and most importantly, he was winning in pensacola and -- not pence ka lo but the florida panhandle. he was carrying a place like liberty county which voted for romney by 40 points in november. and these are areas that are only separated from alabama by an artificial border and he didn't just have a "f" rating from the nra. >> nate, "the washington post" polled republicans before the president announced his gun control package. and there were a lot of people who are very much in favor of the things the president would end up proposing. 89% of republicans in favor of background checks. 61% in favor of a federal database of gun sales. 59% in favor of a ban on high capacity magazines. eastbound 45% in favor of a ban on assault weapons, a large number given we're talking about republicans. so why is it that we have so

much support, independent support and democratic support is way higher than that on most of those things, but yet people say it's a nonstarter in the congress. >> i think it mainly comes from miss reading mystery. people looked at the 1994 midterm elections and saw that republicans wiped out in the south and i think in reality we can say that it was just the association with the liberal democratic president. i think the people look at the 2000 election and blame mr. gore's loss on gun control. i don't think that's fair in retrospect either especially since other candidates like bill nelson were winning in the south while supporting gun control. >> you make the point there's those that you say should be more concerned about being seen as too pro gun control but overall the national democratic party has bent and emphasized

and until the last few weeks and a broader lesson there that, hey, you tried far decade not being the gun control party and treated as the gun control party anyway so why not be the gun control party? >> i don't think that the democrats, you know, got anything out of caving on gun control. you know, obama, kerry did worse than gore in tennessee and backing down on gun control supposed to help democrats in. i think there's real risks for red state democrats but how big? bigger than supporting health care reform or supporting the stimulus or supporting any other element of the democratic platform? i don't think. people say it's maybe disqualifying. >> maybe there might be a difference between, you know, having some gun control measures sort of buried down in the platform and really championing them in the way that maybe

bloomberg does. one other example for you is mary sue harry and used to be the attorney general, ran for governor, up in the polls and ran on a platform of gun control in virginia in the '90s and ended up getting absolutely destroyed and it occurred to me, you know, you mentioned clair mccaskill and doesn't have a good ratding from the nra as a woman but the election didn't hinge on gun control but much more to do with todd aiken and i'm wondering if you there might be a gender difference here. women are typically seen as not as strong or tough as men and judged to be more liberal on average than men. so, do you think there's an added problem for female candidates trying to overcome those caricatures embracing guns to look tough, to look conservative? >> there might be but, you know, it is a pretty good mix of men and women that are winning in

red states while, you know, taking on pro gun control issues. in your examples, things have changed. in virginia in the '90s, democrats only won that state by carrying rural, you know, gun owning republicans and in a lot of way this is's no longer true. they have developed alternative paths to victory. in missouri, you know, mccaskill probably would have lost but she did win in 2006 against a strong republican incumbent senator and i think democrats don't have to run on gun control in 2014. they have to just not lose on it. they can run on whatever they want so i don't think they have to elevate it. >> that's my point. there's a difference between having it in your platform and really featuring it as one of your primary legislative goals. that would be very difficult to pull off in a red state still. >> i agree with that. >> guys, it strikes me that -- and nate, this is not personal. i get what you do and what your

project is but i think when we only talk about what's politically possible around guns or what's popular, we tend to ignore the question of what works. what will actually work to solve the problem at hand. david mammoth, the playwright, has an amazing column out today in "the daily beast" talking about this and says as rules by the government are one size fits all, any government determination of an individual's abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. i think that's exactly what we have done in response to these mass shootings. solving this problem is something the government, bureaucratically knows it can't really do and offers up the bureaucratic solutions that don't really address any of the existential problems here and maybe not doesn't matter what

politically possible or what's popular but what should actually be done. >> well, i strongly agree. i think what's the point of what i'm writing. right now, you have a host of democrats who do not appear to be voting on their conscience. they're voting on electoral, you know, the fear of electoral politics. >> right. >> in this sin stance, that's not supported. i don't know the right answer. i'm from the west. i, you know, know plenty of people with guns. i don't have visceral opposition to people owning firearms. >> right. >> but i think that senators should make up their minds based on the substance of policy and that's true the vast majority of time and questioning votes for senators their seats the more often you will have senators voting on policy and not on electoral politics. >> absolutely. >> is it snowing there, nate? >> it is. >> looks like a winter wonderland there. >> this is a good shot, actually. >> when we say that the government can't do anything, can't solve the problem at all, we ignore the fact that most of

the countries in the world have worked this out. they have solved this. mostly by legislation. >> the government is never going to be able to stop mass shootings from happening. i hate to break it to you and end the suspension. >> i know you want us to do nothing. >> that's what i said. >> but before we -- before we -- we have nate on to talk about this, there are now for the first time in a long time proposals on the table here and the question is can you get a consensus? first of all within the democratic party. you know, nate, for instance, here's a simple one, i think, nate. strengthening the back check checks. that's resistance of red state democrats in the senate to that idea. joe manchin says he might be working with nra and mark kirk from indiana. do you think that's an area red state democrats in the senate actual consensus for that policy outcome? >> if they support background checks for gun control and the her its of the policy, electoral

politics should have nothing to do with their decision. you know, 90% of voters and nra owners and maybe 85% of members support background checks for gun control. i'm sorry, for gun owners. so yeah. go ahead and do it if you support it. >> amen. the only nate that counts, thank you very much. >> oh! up next, republicans pushing a rule change to the electoral college that professor kornacki says in place in 2012 could have us with president romney right now. scary! and we have a theme with the music today. tell us what you think it is. it's friday, january 25th. so you say men are superior drivers? yeah. then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check? every six months without an accident, allstate sends a check. ok.

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generally, the rules for our presidential elections are simple. the candidate who wins the most votes of the state wins that state's votes. so for instance, president obama won virginia by four points last november. thereby earning all 13 of the state's electoral votes. but republicans in virginia who control the state legislature and the governorship have seen intent on changing the rules. the idea to award one electoral vote per congressional district along with a two-vote bonus for winning the most districts. under this formula, what had been a 13-0 obama sweep of virginia last year would have become a 9-4 romney triumph. this is part of a trend. republicans thanks to the wave elections of 2010 control

governorships in a number of big blue states. now, with the gop's national chairman cheering them on, republicans in many of the states are talking more and more about pursuing similar rules changes. the effect could be massive. currently, two states, maine and nebraska, award electoral votes by congressional districts. only once in nebraska in 2008 resulted in the vote going to a candidate that didn't win the statewide popular vote but the math changes in bigger states where democratic voting populations are jammed in to a handful of districts in metropolitan areas and republican voters more widely dispersed across the state. apply the model to 50 states and mitt romney would have won the electoral vote 276 to 262 last november and lost the national popular vote by 5 million votes. there is a lot to talk about here. the point to appreciate about why a move like this would work

so much in republican party's favor is that sort of ideologically and partisan identity, the country's sorting itself out and the rising democratic coalition, nonwhite, young, college educated, this sort of thing, that rising democratic coalition is packed in to metropolitan areas and you will have overwhelming -- take a big state that might have 15 electoral votes, you will have 3 or 4 congressional districts with overwhelming democratic majorities, 80%, 90% but then 9 or 10 districts in the state where the republicans have about 60% let's say. take it together, enough for the democrats to win the state but when you break it down by congressional district republicans start racking up some pretty significant majorities and what you see with the model in pennsylvania and ohio and virginia, all the other states and it really -- it speaks to that -- that's the statistic i have cited i think on this show before to appreciate the evolution in 1988, michael dukakis who was

clobbered won over 800 counties in the country. barack obama won fewer than 700. that's how tightly condensed the democratic vote's become. for me, the bottom line is simple. saying this for years and keep saying it until i die or they change it. most votes in election should win. i don't believe the arguments add up to much. whoever gets the most votes nationally wins, period. end of story. >> i think that we all agree on. >> sake of ease. >> exactly. the current system doesn't make any sense and the other dynamic is how well republicans did particularly in state legislatures in 2010, gave them control of the redistricting process. gave them control of a lot of these state legislatures that went blue so virginia again at the same level, house and senate controlled by republicans, governorship, controlled by republicans and went blue. but something to take note of here that's absolutely incredible is prior to 2008,

prior to president obama winning virginia in 2008, a democrat had not won virginia for 44 years. lbj was the last democrat to win at the national level in virginia in 44 years. for the presidency. so basically, with this plan, republicans are giving up. they're saying, we can't win virginia. we can't win it the way that it is. we have got to do these tricks to try to get back our advantage. that's incredible. because if you're losing virginia, for the presidency, you're losing. period. so i think that's an incredible thing to take note of. one other thing, the virginia republicans have been quite busy this week. on monday during the president's inauguration, civil rights icon in virginia, first african-american mayor of richmond and a state senator decided to attend the president's inauguration. and the republicans in the senate took advantage of his absence on mlk day, as well, to push through a partisan gerrymandered version of the

state senate districts. they made all the democratic districts worse and they really targeting deeds the gubernatorial nominee last time ago who represents a rural district and if this new map becomes law, would actually lose his seat because of this. so they're really doing everything they can to sort of game the system in virginia. >> well, you know, i think a couple of things. i think it should be noted that since the beginning of our young nation, democrats have done some things to manipulate the system. >> sure. >> at times, as well. every party, minority, majority, wants to win and they do what they have to to win. not an excuse. just a fact. too, i think some of this is hyperbole. nebraska and maine doing this for decades and only once a congressional district in either voted against the popular vote. had it been the system in 2008, nationally, obama would have won, in fact.

301 to 237. i want to say optically, i don't know that this is something that i'm comfortable with. and i've sort of had to come around to this. i was reading something that larry sabato wrote in his krystal ball column. we are working you in to every topic disdiscussed today. >> spelled krystal wrong. >> republicans face a choice best characterized by personalizing it, a healthy, optimistic party is reaganesque. convinced it can win the future embracing it and making a positive case for its philosophy and candidates to all americans. a party in decline is nixonian. feels overwhelmed by trends and thinks it can win only by cheating, by subverting the system and stacking the deck in its favor. i got to say, at least optically even if disagree with some of those points, he is right.

for exactly the reason we're having conversations like this around this table. because it gives democrats an opportunity to say, they're cheating. and i'm actually incredibly optimistic about our party and future of conservatism. this isn't acting like it and i'd rather we optimistic. >> to your point, the voting i.d. laws passed last time around to do essentially the same thing really backfired on republicans and created this atmosphere where people felt like they were -- >> absolutely what you're saying and saying about appearing fearful, it seems with voter i.d. and with this, the gop is trying to change the game rather than change their messaging. sort of saying, like we can't win. we can't win a state like virginia which is really important in a gop -- >> defeatist. >> there's definitely something very fearful about conservatism right now. >> there's fearful within the party. conservatism is not fearful. the party apparatus. >> absolutely. expanding liberty to people in

terms of voter i.d., immigration, all sorts of ways. and some ways this is much ado about nothing. just doing it in virginia is not enough. you have to also do it in wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan to really have an affect. there's two gop state senators who say they don't vote for this and hard time to become law and in terms of the voting rights act virginia will have to go to the justice department and say, this is why this is not ret retrogressive for the black voters in the state taking power from those in black voters. talk about voters smooshed together. >> virginia will have to do that unless the supreme court steps in and that's something to watch for. >> absolutely. >> we took the same conversation to the facebook friends with these kinds of measures, romney would have won the election. we asked them what they think about that. and our friend virginia brown with me. she says let's go by the popular

vote. period. >> amen. >> thank you. what do you think of that? head over to facebook.com/thecyc facebook.com/thecyclemsnbc. that's all an address. that's important here on these internets. baby it's cold outside! some are asking, is climate change to blame in oh yeah. we're going there. it's about to get hot in here. i'm freezing. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade. voted "best investment services company."

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we are now in day five of the frigid cold snap and talk about adding insult to injury. fast moving winter storm bringing snow and ice to midwest and south and northeast. >> nice. >> this is new video of chicago

where about an inch has fallen today and as we establish with nate, snowing currently in d.c. >> good job. >> this is a big deal in chicago, though. the windy city a record 335 days without any measurable snow. while inch by inch they're ending that record today and goes without saying this is another strange season of weather. take here in new york. last weekend we were near 60 degrees and this week we haven't broken the low 20s and it's been awful. and next thursday's expected high is actually 54 which sounds pretty great. while it's harder and harder to predict the weather and coming from krystal ball, it's easy to predict we're living in a time of climate change. the president made it part of the inaugural address. take a look. >> we will respond to the threat of climate change knowing that the failure to do so would threaten our children and future generations.

some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science but none can deny the raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms. >> joining us now is bob deans with the natural resources defense council. and bob, you know, the prospect for actually passing any big legislation on climate change is pretty grim. the president signaled that he'll do what he can through executive action. how powerful can just what he's able to do himself without congress, how much of an impact could they have? >> a huge impact, krystal. last fall, the president said cli smart a threat. his opponent said it's a joke. on monday, he showed that he meant what he said calling for climate action and saying if we don't do it, we'll betray our children, personal responsibility. it doesn't get any clearer than that. he's the most important thing he can do. he can reduce the carbon emissions, the carbon pollution

that's warming our planet, coming from our power plants. those are the single largest sources of industrial carbon pollution across our country. 40% of the carbon in the country coming from the power plants. the president has the authority under the clean air act to set standards reducing those carbon levels and we have put forth a plan to reduce the levels by 26% by 2020, which would reduce our national carbon footprint by 10%. it would save consumers money. it would make our generating capacity much more efficient. it is the right thing to do. we need to strike a blow against climate change. >> bob, i guess picking up on that point then, so if the epa is empowered to set the new standards on emission, why wasn't this done sooner? second of all, with the failure of cap in trade in the last four years, what are we losing then in terms of emissions by having epa action as opposed to comprehensive cap in trade legislation in what's the difference there?

what do we lose without cap in trade? >> what we can do going after the power plants and dealing with 40% of our carbon pollution, cutting that piece of it, builds on what the president was able to do in his first term which is to go after the 30% of the carbon emission that is are coming from the automobiles. and he worked with the auto makers to put in place a plan to reduce our mileage or to improve our mileage, double it, by 2025 which will reduce our carbon footprint from the driving in half. that's a big deal. that's 70% of the carbon emissions in this country that can be dealt with one way or another the first term and the second term. that's progress. >> bob, we were all just sitting here in the studio wondering if we could get global warming in here. it is freezing in this climate. but that aside, how big do you think a role -- nuclear energy is going to play in all of this? >> well, we're getting 20% of our electricity from nuclear power and stable for a listening

time. the big story in the electricity generation is in wind. wind is now -- came from nowhere to it's now 4% of the electricity in this country. we're getting from wind power and the department of energy says we can grow that to 20% which would be on par with nuclear power in just 15 years if we stay the course and important to continue to invest in the fur which you are that way. >> bob, i mean, you are talking about the potential progress here in a second term and one of the first decision that is president obama faces right now is the keystone pipeline. and i think there's possible consequences for emissions from approving that. i think the expectation is to be approved. when's the estimate of the epa? something like over a billion tons of co2 emissions over 50 years could be produced by this pipeline. are you concerned whatever, a lot of good you are seeing here in the second term offset by approving the keystone? >> the pipeline's bad news. it would be the equivalent, the carbon equivalent of 5 million new cars on the road. that's not the direction to go in. some of the dirtiest oil on the

planet. pumping it through the heart of the bread das wet of america. >> do you agree with the consensus it will happen, he will approve it? >> we don't. the state department has undertaken a review. we expect results some point but the state department is going to look and john kerry said yesterday that environmental consequences will be part of that study and in that context, the impact on climate is huge. and of course, we're destroying the forest in canada to get the oil out and take twos 0 three times the carbon to get the crude out of the ground as it does to get conventional oil. doesn't make sense and won't help the country. it's a big profit scheme for big oil. we need to put an end to it. >> bob deans, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. well, it is a good weekend to escape the cold in a cozy movie theater. up next, the man behind one of this weekend's big openers. director and producer taylor hackford joins us to talk about

"parker." ♪

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people like you only come down here for one reason. money. i don't know what you're in to. kidnapping, extortion, robbery. but whatever it is you need somebody who knows the territory. or you're going to get caught. >> take off your clothes. >> what? >> i'm not sure if i'm better off with you alive or dead. either way, i have to know if you're wearing a wire. >> you can understand why he wants to get her undressed. i interviewed j.lo once, struggled to remember my questions. but i digress. >> yes, you do. >> the director of "parker," the star of 20 novels of richard stark. the movie stars jennifer lopez, nick nolte and michael chickless and the littest work of director

taylor hackford, the man behind "ray" and "officer and a gentleman." with us now academy award winning filmmaker, taylor hackford, how are you, sir? >> just fine. i was in new york and i know how cold it is and back in los angeles it's raining. maybe 30 degrees difference but i'm back and fort. >> i'd take the rain. >> it's sunny in your world. "parker" is an extraordinary character. lots of novels written about him. tell us why you were attracted to this character. >> i love donald westlake as a novelist. he's one of our best, you know, crime thriller novelists. and in "parker" he created a literary character that's indelible. 24 novels but people all over the world that have read him and i have. i read the character.

various filmmakers tried to make "parker" in the past and have. lee marvin. mel gibson. this is my installment and my "parker" is jason stathum. >> i wanted you to weigh in on a conversation happening sort of society wide. you're the president of the director guilds of america and associates met with the administration to talk about the connection between violence in the media and violence in our society. and i just wanted to sort of see if you see any connection there or what your take is on that topic. >> i don't think there's any studies that show a connection between entertainment, thing that is are on the screen, and what happens in situations in society. there are lots of things people can theorize about. face it. if we have guns in society, people are going to use them. and to say that, oh, they were driven to it by entertainment, i just don't happen to agree with and i'd like to see the

scientific evidence to prove it. listen. my film is about criminals. all right? it's truth in advertising. it's about a career criminal. when you see the film, is there violence in it? yes. is there violence among criminals? yes. but in reality, i think that, you know, the gun lobby would like to point towards hollywood and say, hey, let's bring as many people in to this equation as possible. and i think they're trying to deflect the real issue, the real issue is, you know, in england there are a lot of films, all the film that is you see here, all the television shows. do they have a level of violence with guns we do? of course not. >> right. >> because guns aren't in that society. and i think in this instance, i resent being drawn in to this. i mean, again, my film is what it is. it's a literary character and in this world, from the great train robbery, the first film to now,

people are fascinated by, you know, the other side of society. criminal side of society. and i think if you enjoy those kinds of films and i have in the past. i always have. that's why i did this. my first, you know, genre piece but i make no apologies. it is what it is. advertised that way. don't go to see it if you don't like those films. >> absolutely. >> as much as you resent being drawn in to the violent media kind of sub culture topic, i think gun owners resent being treated as if they're suspects and criminals and cry lent aggressors which most often they're not. i want to get back to your movies. i was having lunch with a colleague earlier this week and he told me that before you became a director you were writing film reviews at the "l.a. times." is that right? >> no, no. >> he is lying? >> i used to be -- no, no. i wrote an article for "the l.a. times" this past weekend about donald westlake.

you know, i was an on-air reporter at public television station but it was a political reporter back in the '70s. >> huh. >> that was my start. and it was great. i loved it. and it was -- >> i can't wait to tell him that he's completely wrong about this. >> he's wrong. he's wrong. he's wrong. but a nice -- by the way, it's a nice compliment. >> i want to talk about what i think is your greatest film "ray." seems like everything came together properly with that. i know it was hard to get it made. just talk about how it was to bring that story to the screen and how everything came together so well for that project. >> i think everything has to do with source. i was making a bio pic about one of the brilliant, brilliant artists that america's ever produced. i had the fortune of convincing ray charles to give me his life rights and took 13 years to find the money and 15 years to complete the film. >> wow. >> gave me the opportunity to spend that amount of time with

ray charles and let me tell you there are very few people like ray charles and it was, you know, this huge sense of responsibility. for both me and for jamie foxx. both of us went forward in the partnership and we felt the weight of presenting this incredible personage on film and dedicated and luckily everybody on the film really worked in the same sense of responsibility and i think the film will live for a long, long time. >> definitely. taylor, good luck with "parker." great to have you on "the cycle." >> i appreciate the time. up next, from the weekend box office to the bar scene, yeah, we are getting the weekend started early here. bar story meets coming of age story from author rosy schapp. [ man ] ring ring... progresso

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some brokerage firms are. but way too many aren't. why? because selling their funds makes them more money. which makes you wonder. isn't that a conflict? go to e-trade. we've got over 8,000 mutual funds and not one of them has our name on it. e-trade. less for us. more for you. our next guest at one point or another is everybody's best friend. the bartender! it's a position that holds a very serious cache in every day life and cultural history. some of america's favorite books are drinking mem mors like pete hamill, but did any of them spend 13,000 hours in bars?

rosy schapp has and all-time regular, she spent most of the life crisscrossing the globe in search of the perfect watering hole and the perfect sense of community. her expertise landed her a contributing gig with this american life on npr and "the new york times" and you can read about her experiences in the new book "drinking with men, a memoir." welcome. >> thank you. it's great to be here. >> you almost make a feminist argument that women don't go to bars alone to drink alone. they don't become regulars because of this double standard in society and i think you are right. i don't go to bars alone. i don't drink anywhere regularly. but is that really a bad thing? why are you trying to push women in to bars? >> because i think they'll meet really great people and make lifelong friends in bars and find a great community in a neighborhood bar.

i'm not saying go to a fancy hotel bar, go to, you know, a luxurious cocktail bar. once in a while i love doing those things but i think your corner bar, the neighborhood bar can just be a really surprising source of comfort and stability and an anchor in a person's life. >> yeah. i mean, i guess the key is finding a place and becoming a regular there. i was having a conversation with a few female friends of mine and they hate going to barrels whether it's alone obviously or in a group because when they go out, there's just this assumption it seems among every male in the bar they're there looking to, you know, to meet and -- >> right. >> and they get approached and terrible stuff. >> right, right. >> cheesy pick-up lines. i guess i'm saying what is the key to finding the kind of place you're talking about where you are not going to have to run in to the johnny sleazeball. >> sure. you could run in to johnny

sleazeball anywhere. that could happen. but i think if it's a bar already rooted where you live, a neighborhood bar, once you start going and once you start to get to know the bartenders, you sort of become part of the family and i know as a bartender and as a regular, i've always looked after the people who i serve at the bar where i work. and i've always felt looked after by the bartenders i have come to know really well. and i think a lot of it has to do with reading a bar. you walk in to a bar. it's really loud, really crowded. you can kind of get that meat market feeling from certain bars right away. where a much more low-key, friendly, unpreten house is neighborhood bar won't send out those signals because they're not really there. it's a place to relax and you don't have to get dressed up and it's very easy to ease in to regularhood in places like that. >> what about pregnant ladies at bars? >> bad idea. i'm not endorsing that.

>> so the there's been a huge decline of community institutions in america, well documented in the book "boeing alone." is that what this is really about? about, finding a community in a country where there aren't a lot of places to have a real community? >> absolutely. that's pretty much what this is all about. i think it's true that community has gotten harder to find, but i still think we all yearn for it, and when i started going to bars a long time ago, probably a little younger than i should have, i didn't know that was what i was looking for, but the more i became part of bar culture, i realized that that was the place that wasn't home, wasn't school, wasn't work where i could meet people and have great conversations and actually learn from my fellow drinkers. >> before we get out of here, i just want to say that, you know, huge admirer of the work of your father. legendary writer. your brother jeremy is carving out a nice little career. >> go big red.

>> big things in his future i think. >> i think so. >> but you say you're monogamous with your bars and you delineate your chapters on the different bars you have loved in new york. so dive bars or classy bars, which do you prefer and why? >> i kind of like both and i think what i like best is actually something between the two. i don't think a neighborhood bar is inevidently a dive. i think a dive is a class of its own and there's many dives i love, but, you know, i think one difference in a good neighborhood bar rather than a dive, you can rely on finding a relatively clean restroom, which i really appreciate. so that's a little bit of a difference. a good clean neighborhood bar, but i love a dive on a good divy night, too. >> rosy toure mentioned your brother there. i remember watching his most famous interview with bobby knight but i was in a bar watching that. i remember having a conversation a few years ago with somebody about whether televisions in bars are a good thing or a bad thing, whether they kind of ruin

the community vibe because everybody starts paying attention to the tv and not talking to each other or maybe they foster more conversation because people come and they have this shared experience watching the game or the bobby knight interview, whatever it is. what do you think of that? >> i was having a panic attack during that interview actually. i thought he was going to strangle my brother and i was at home. i wasn't at a bar. that can go both ways. i'm a sports fan and i love to go to my local soccer bar in brooklyn and watch matches with people and get kind of loud. most of the time when i'm hanging out in a bar i put a premium on conversation. anywhere where there's a blaring tv or the music is too loud, i don't think that facilitates the kind of community i love about bars. >> thank you for stopping by. >> thank you so much. it was fun. >> and a quick shout out to the

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this week brought us the 40th anniversary of roe v. wade and made me reflect on a moment from 15 years when i was in a committed relationship with a woman who i knew was just not the one. she also knew it probably wasn't going to work out and then she got pregnant, and i was terrified. i have always known the importance of family and building kids into strong adults and i know i would not be who i am if not for growing up under the watchful eye of two people who loved me and loved each other. i knew that pregnant woman and i

were not going to be able to form a lasting family. she decided it was best to have an abortion and days later she did, we did, and in some ways that choice saved my life. i was not then smart enough or man enough to build a family or raise a child, and i only would have contributed to making a mess of three lives. years after that i met another woman, married her, and after we decided to get pregnant, i went to her doctor's appointments, our doctor's appointments, with joy. it was a thrill to watch that boy grow inside her, but i must admit during that second trimester as we watched him move around on 3-d sonograms i saw how human and they were my life long belief was jostled. in the end i remain committed to being pro-choice because i cannot imagine arguing against a woman's right to control her body and thus her life. i believe in a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course.

yes, there is a reasonable and unsolvable medical debate about when exactly life begins, but i find something undeniably misogynist about the impulse to deny a woman's dominion over her own body and limit her ability to shape her life and impose another sense of morality on her. family building is at the heart of nation building, and taking away the ability to choose means the ability to build lasting families is challenged. richard florida finds the higher a state's abortion rate, the lower its divorce rate. even though abortion is legal, ever since roe was passed the right has been working not just to overturn it but also to constrain it. today was the 40th annual march for life in d.c., and 87% of counties there are no abortion providers and in several states it's nearly impossible to get an abortion. in over the past two years 130 laws have been enacted restricting abortion rights and curbing the number ever abortion providers. i want abortion to be legal, safe, and rare, but restricting

access makes it rare for the wrong reason and drives many women to self-administered abortions that endanger their lives and reproductive future. in a nation where 40% of children are born to unwed mothers, we are hurting our nation by making family planning harder. i thank god and country that when i fell into a bad situation, abortion was there to save me and keep me on a path toward building a strong family i have now and i pray that safety net remains in place. people who have children when they're prepared leads to stronger children, stronger families, and thus stronger adults and a stronger america. and now a man who is a good husband and a great father, according to his own account, martin bashir. >> toure, what can i say. thank you very much for the obscene compliment and good afternoon. it's friday, january the 25th, and the republican national committee has learned its lesson. the problem isn't them, it's those americans who show up on election day.